Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

aka: Drømmefall: Den lengste reisen, Mengyun: Zui Chang de Lücheng, The Longest Journey 2, The Longest Journey: Static
Moby ID: 22143
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Dreamfall is the sequel to The Longest Journey and is a third-person adventure game with a few action episodes.

The game begins in Casablanca, 2219. Zoë Castillo is about to get involved in a conspiracy that spans across two worlds: the one she grew up in, and a mysterious magical realm. There has been static interference that is disrupting technology, and it seems to be linked to a little girl seen only by Zoë. As Zoë begins her search for a lost friend, she discovers the truth about the two worlds and the search is now on for the one person who may help Zoë unravel the dangerous web she has become entangled in: April Ryan.

Dreamfall puts the player in control of three characters. It also introduces the focus field feature, which allows the player to scan an entire visible environment as seen by the characters and also use it to eavesdrop into other people's conversations. There are a few fighting sequences in the game, and a few instances where the player can choose to fight a character or opt to solve the confrontation in a peaceful way. The game spans 13 chapters; like April in the previous game, Zoë keeps a diary of all the events that occur in the game.

Spellings

  • Dreamfall: Бесконечное Путешествие - Russian spelling
  • 夢殞:無盡的旅程II - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 梦陨: 最长的旅程 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

333 People (317 developers, 16 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 73 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 93 ratings with 9 reviews)

That’s what happens when you mix ideas of pretty much every great adventure made

The Good
The plot is rather good, but while playing the game a perceptive person cannot avoid noticing the similarity between this game and others famous gems. While this doesn’t make the game less enjoyable at first glance, it's rather dull, when you stop and think: haven’t I played this before? Fortunately, as the plot is very straight, you may hang for a while without thinking this too much. The graphics are also very good. It’s clear that they put a lot of effort in them. You probably will stop some times just to look at the surroundings. The cutscenes taking place during the dialogues are entertaining too, even though the facial animations are not as great as the graphics in general or the voice acting, that is terrific. The descriptions you receive from your current character (there are three that you must direct through the game) when looking to something are fantastic, they are the main mechanic that reveals theirs full personality, without any long introductions or such. Making the player take attention to them is a great way to attach the player to the characters, making the plot significantly more interesting.

The Bad
One major problem is the emptiness you will few when exploring a whole new city. You won’t be able to enter a single place that isn’t direct linked with your next objective. I know that a different approach could be a enormous task, however, I don’t think that would hurt the developers if they added access to at least all the taverns. That would have a good impact in the game, making it appears less hollow, like it does sometimes. Giving the player some options would be fantastic too. Dialogue in this game is pretty useless, as almost every option leads to the same place. In the entire game, there is just a couple of "wrong" answers that are pretty obvious. The linearity of the plot is awkward. In one part of the game you will be controlling one assassin named Kian and you will have to choose if you want to kill your target or not, but even if you want to, you really can't, as your character will refuse to do so. In the last part of the game there is an even worse mandatory action: while watching the cutscenes, your character chooses a to agree with a very bad idea, that if you were taking attention to the plot unfolding, you would know that this action is something risk and probably in vain. Would hurt the developers if they featured some "real" dialogue options? Would hurt them if they created some alternative endings? While these may look like petty matters, there would be a real difference in the game if they were well implemented. Still, due the lack of options (how many adventures released in late 00's, had so much hype?), it's a game that should definitely be played.

The Bottom Line
I could start this part of my review in a different fashion, however I can’t hope but to let know straight what I think happened when the game was been developed:

-Hey everyone, The Longest Journey was really good, but it didn’t filled our pockets with endless money, so we need a sequel, and it must be a real good one, in order to sell well. Does anybody have an idea?

-I do, sir. Why don’t we put a hot girl as the main protagonist? We could show her in the cover as well.

-But we had a sort of that in the last game, and what about the rating? If we push too far it won’t even be sold in most game stores, you know .But, eureka, we could just show her a bit underdressed sometimes, and in the rest of the time, the gamers imagination should be fulfilled with all kind of suggestive stuff, like “a boyfriend’s bed that bounces”, “the salty seamen”, “the cock and the puss”, "April's rod of Joie covered with scented lubricant" or "Reza's dreams with Zoe, naked, sweating and moaning". Yeah, that’s really good.

-And why not make every character in the game beautiful as well? More is better.

-That’s a good idea, in fact we could put two or three protagonists now. Anachronox did it, and did it well.

-So let’s just recycle that April, from the previous game, we could recycle a bunch of he story as well. Traveling between parallel worlds hasn’t been so cool since Outcast.

-Talking about Outcast, we should be aware of the combat system and it’s length. Back in 1999, Outcast was praised, but some guys hated it because of the huge amount of quests you can do at once and because the difficult combat for some. So let’s do the following: We take the Outcast gameplay, but this game should be linear and the combat very easy if the protagonist are supposed to win in order to advance the story.

-But let’s just add some conversation options, alright? This way the players will not notice that they will end in the same place no matter what they choose to say, and if anybody thinks it’s a bad idea, it is exactly what happens in the Lucas Arts adventures, like Full Throttle or Grim Fandango, no matter what the protagonist says, it will never make you become stuck. And above all, Manny Cavalera turning his head towards important items was quite a help.

-That’s right, but let’s just make a couple of obvious wrong answers in the game, so the critics cannot say the dialogue is useless. Getting rid of difficult puzzles should also be an important matter. If advancing in the plot is easy, I think non-hardcore adventure players may buy the game too.

-Good, that’s just something I think we forgot: Deus Ex. What can we borrow from it? That’s too great to simply ignore.

-I don’t know. Maybe we should just take the French boîte from Nicollet and place some other night club in this game, with the same atmosphere, preferably right before a major twist in the plot. Let’s also replace those UNATCO guys with something like it. I don’t know maybe “The Eye” is a good name. Every game should have a big and mean govern agency or corporation.Why not a core level too?

-This will do. Ok guys, I think we have enough, in fact this is enough to have our hands full, as I don’t think we will be able to release the game on schedule if we implement all these ideas and write an end for it. So let’s start the work, end if we don’t have time for a proper end, let’s just put a cutscene like there will be a sequel or something like this to be released soon. We already flooded the game with cutscenes with that Samara Morgan wannabe.

Well, that’s it. If you read everything until now, you should be aware of how the game is.

Windows · by Open_Sights (466) · 2010

The story continues, and it's a pretty decent sequel.

The Good
April Ryan returns in the sequel to The Longest Journey, along with two new characters to control, Zoë Castillo and Kian. You'll actually be controlling Zoë for about half the game. There's several characters and locations that will be familiar if you played the first game, but a lot has changed in the ten years since the first adventure, the story however is as developed as ever and the gaps will be filled in as you meet old friends and foes, and that's what this game is essentially all about, story, it's a game excuse for telling a reasonably long story, and it's told with a bit of film style directing.

And it's fun, sitting back and relaxing and listening to the conversations and watching the cutscenes is, well, relaxing. There's conversation options, which affect what you say or how you say it, they’ll be a descriptive sentence telling the thoughts of the character you happen to be controlling under each option, which is typically one word, such as a persons name or a reaction. It's not too involving, and everything ends up in the same place, Dreamfall is an extremely linear game, but it adds a flavour of variety.

There's the obligatory spooky girl ala The Ring / F.E.A.R. who visits Zoë via visions and TV screens, she has seemingly infiltrated ‘The Wire’, which is a worldwide network that everything is connected to (undies, toasters etc), the concept is certainly feasible, you'll even be using a mobile phone to keep in contact with friends and family (and hack corporate security systems).

Tapping the right mouse button lights up a blue line of sight beam from your character's toes to the top of the screen which can then be swept left and right highlighting any objects of interactivity or comment-worthiness.

The sets can be large and are usually quite pretty.

There’s combat, a strong attack, a normal attack, and the ability to block. Dreamfall’s combat has received a lot of criticism, or at least some people may be questioning it’s inclusion, and I can see why. I did however enjoy knocking out that secretarial security woman near the beginning of the game, and afterwards was as surprised as Zoë that the whole thing had actually happened!

The Bad
Although the sets can be large and usually quite pretty they're not very interactive, for example there’s only one pub that you can actually enter in Marcuria, despite their being several other establishments as just scenery with signs and front doors and all the indications of something actually being there, but with no way of interacting with them.

Like in the first game the conversations can drag a little and seem a little ordinary on occasions, though there's a decent story here too - and one that's told from perspectives of several characters (player and npc's alike).

The voice acting for Zoë is very bland with only the slightest hint of occasional emotion, I kid you not, I began to think that maybe it was the script, but other characters, some returning from the first game, do a much better job.

The Bottom Line
Dreamfall ends on a cliff hanger, it's essentially half a story, and half a story I enjoyed very much, I've had my Sunday roast now I want my crumble and custard and coffee by the fire, and a tale or two to finish the evening off. What I mean to say is that there are very few loose ends tied off, if any, there's going to be a sequel, and I'm looking forward to it.

P.S.

Make sure you let the credits roll, as there’s a final scene at the end.

Windows · by Jack Lightbeard (2685) · 2006

A sequel that shows the adventure genre is dying.

The Good
The graphics of Dreamfall are the strongest part of the game obviously. The locations remain exact replicates of the locations in the first game(except those who are new of course) and everything looks absolutely stunning(taken you have the machine to run this game on optimal performance that is). The models look realistic(my biggest grief with the first game were the models which always looked too polygonized for me), but sadly, that's where the game stops impressing me.

The Bad
Because underneath the layer of impressive state-of-the-art graphics, lie a confusing story with thousands of continuity issues, horrendous voice acting, and music that fails to live up to the awesome jazzy tracks of the first game. The decision to not have the Jukebox in the Fringe Cafe in the sequel just baffles me, it was one of the coolest elements of the first game and I missed it. A lot.

As mentioned, the story is very confusing and a lot of it makes no sense if you keep the first game in mind. 1. Charlie is still working on the Fringe Cafe, 10 years after the first game, where he mentioned that the job on the cafe was only to pay for his education(he was studying to be a dancer). Therefore, he either failed miserably on his biggest dream, or the writers just didn't keep in mind he studied to be a dancer. He never mentions in the script of Dreamfall that he wanted to be a dancer, only that he took over the cafe after the previous owner, Stan. 2. Emma(who looks nothing like she did in the first game) mentions that when April told that she had gone to another dimension, she believed April and Charlie was the one in doubt. In fact, April never tells Emma and Charlie about Arcadia in the first game, and Charlie was the one who wanted to listen while Emma claimed April had gone mad. 3. Despite this being a game developed by Norwegians, the Norwegian version of Dreamfall sounds terrible. It's more like a badly translated version of the English script. While in the first game, the script was all Norwegian, the Norwegian script in Dreamfall contains a lot of English words for places and names(which makes no sense since they were Norwegian words in the first game). Also, a lot of the voice actors have been replaced. I have nothing against Petronella Barker, but I think a lot of the fans were disappointed that Synnøve Svabo didn't return to her role as April Ryan.

I have one thing to say about the voice acting: It sucks! The actors don't sound like they know what they are saying, they also sound completely uninterested, like they were paid to say the lines, but never instructed on what they are talking about. The music sounds incredibly stock, but this is perhaps done on purpose to make you pay more attention to the lackluster voice acting...

The Bottom Line
Compared to The Longest Journey, Dreamfall is a sequel that could have been an awesome game with awesome graphics, but because of the issues I had with the story and the voice acting, which should be the essences in the game, it fails to impress me. Not to mention it has been simplified and the action elements makes it feel more like an action game than an adventure game.

The adventure genre is clearly decaying, which this game really shows. Stick to the first game, it may not have impressive graphics, but the original story remains the best.

Why this became the Game Of The Year is beyond my comprehension.

Windows · by x0n1c64 (12) · 2008

[ View all 9 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Nooooooooooo where's the sequel?!?!?!? Matt Neuteboom (976) Jul 1, 2008

Trivia

666

Curiously, four out of the seven *.CAB file archives located on the game CDs (2, 3, 4, and 5) are 666,000 kB large and the total size of all files on the first CD is also very close to that number.

1001 Video Games

The Xbox version of Dreamfall: The Longest Journey appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Azadi

The Azadi culture in the game is based on the real world Persian culture (today's Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan). The word "Azadi" itself is a name of a tower in Tehran, the capital of Iran, which was built in 1971 and has since become the symbol of the city. Ironically, the Persian word azadi means "freedom", which doesn't exactly fit the fanatical nature of the Azadi in the game.

Damien's apartment

The two Chinese characters which can be seen on the background during the cut-scene in Damien's apartment are 平和, which are pronounced heiwa in Japanese and mean "peace".

Funcom

Dreamfall is an anniversary game for Funcom, as it is the 25th game they developed.

Sexual references

Intentional or otherwise, the two closed taverns that Zoë can see when she is first in Marcuria are "The Cock and the Puss" and "The Salty Seaman", which both have ambiguous sexual undertones.

References

  • There are several references to Funcom's Anarchy Online series in the game. A copy of the Anarchy Online novel is visible in Zoë's apartment, and the music that plays on the first floor of Reza's apartment is also a track from the MMORPG.
  • There are various Dreamfall and The Longest Journey boxes throughout the game. Such as in Reza's bathroom shelf, Zoë 's floor near the TV, behind the Merchant at the crossroads, as well as many other places.

Technology

Although the game's minimum requirement on the box and "readme" file states that you need a GeForce FX 5700 or a ATi Radeon 9550 display card to run it, the game is playable on older cards such as GeForce 3 or Radeon 8500. In fact, it only uses pixel and vertex shaders version 1.1 not version 2.0 and beyond. However just like every shader model 1.1 powered game it won't work with GeForce 4 MX.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2006 – #3 Xbox Game of the Year
    • 2006 – #8 PC Game of the Year
    • 2006 – PC Adventure Game of the Year
    • 2006 – PC Adventure Game of the Year (Gamers' Vote)
    • 2006 – Xbox Adventure Game of the Year
    • 2006 – Best Music of the Year (PC)
    • 2006 – Best Story of the Year (PC)
  • PC Powerplay (Germany)
    • Issue 02/2007 – The Most Interactive Movie in 2006

Information also contributed by Karthik KANE, Sciere and Unicorn Lynx.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Tom Murphy.

Xbox 360 added by Parf.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, POMAH, Sciere, Игги Друге, Robin Ferreira, Paulus18950, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added April 26, 2006. Last modified March 12, 2024.